Seven out of ten Lithuanians believe that Russia poses a real threat to Lithuania’s national security, according to a poll commissioned by LRT. Experts say this is as broad a consensus as one can get in a pluralistic society, although there is an apparent gap between ethnic Lithuanians and minority citizens of the country.
The representative survey of the Lithuanian population was carried out by the pollster Baltijos Tyrimai between March 15–25. It involved 1,115 adult respondents. The margin of error is 2.9 percent.
The respondents were asked whether they thought Russia posed a real threat to Lithuania’s national security.
The issue of ethnicity stands out
According to the survey, seven out of ten people think that Russia poses a real threat to Lithuania’s national security (29% said definitely yes, 41% said rather yes), while a quarter (23%) disagree with the assertion (4% said definitely no, 19% said rather no). Seven percent of the respondents did not have an opinion or did not answer the question.
There was no significant variation along socioeconomic or age lines, although women (74%) are more likely than men (65%) to agree that Russia poses a real threat to Lithuania’s national security, as are people under 50 (74%), residents of rural areas and smaller towns, respondents in the lowest household income bracket (77%).
The only group of the population that stood out were non-Lithuanian speakers. Half of them disagreed that Russia represents a real threat to Lithuania, as opposed to 31% who thought it did.
Broadest possible consensus
Political science professor Dovilė Jakniūnaitė of Vilnius University says that 70% of the population agreeing on something is a high figure.
“This reflects both the political direction and the attitudes of the public information space. I think this is not an unexpected figure,” she tells LRT.lt.
Mindaugas Norkevičius, vice dean of the Faculty of Political Science and Diplomacy at Vytautas Magnus University (VDU), says that Lithuania’s geographical position leads to national security taking precedence over other issues.
“Topics like environmental, social, or economic security are overshadowed in the Lithuanian discourse by geopolitical threats, those related to territorial integrity, border protection, threats from other countries, regional conflicts,” Norkevičius tells LRT.lt.
Since most of the public discourse is focused on threats posed by Russia, people naturally come to perceive it as the most pressing issue, he says.
“If we don’t talk much about problems such as climate change, cyber security, migration, then they are all overshadowed by other problems, such as the threat to territorial integrity or the threat of a regional conflict,” says Norkevičius.
Why some disagree?
Even amid the overwhelming public discourse insisting that Russia poses an existential threat to the Baltic states, 23% of the respondents resisting this view seems like a big proportion.
Jakniūnaitė points out, however, that we do not really know what is behind these figures. Some respondents may not think that Russia is a threat because Lithuania is effectively protected by international organisations, such as NATO.
“In no society will everybody think the same way, unless we have a radical situation like in Ukraine where, at the outset of the war, support for [President] Volodymyr Zelensky was over 90%,” she says. “I would not say that the 23% of people who think differently are a danger or there’s somehow wrong with them.”
Norkevičius believes that some of these respondents feel safe under the protection of international organisations, while others could be “influenced by Russian propaganda”.
“There is a group of people who would like to maintain the closest possible relations with Russia and therefore do not see a threat. There’s an element of propaganda and emerging information threats,” he says.
Are ethnic minorities influenced by propaganda?
When it comes to the significant gap in how ethnic Lithuanians and non-Lithuanians see the Russian threat, Jakniūnaitė says some of it can be just a statistical effect. Ethnic minority respondents made up about 10% of the sample – in line with their proportion in the population – and such a low number leads to a larger statistical error.
Although, she adds, real differences in opinion do exist between the Lithuanian-speaking majority and minority groups.
“There is a high probability that the attitudes of some non-Lithuanian speakers will be determined by their group belonging, and another reason is a slightly different information or social space they occupy. These are the most likely explanations for why these people do not see Russia as a threat,” says the Vilnius University professor.
Norkevičius argues that ethnic minorities are more likely to consume Russian media, which influences their perception of Russia.
“When a group of people are exposed to the information field of another country and listen to the news in Russian, they may get the impression that there is no threat. While in Lithuania’s information field, the Russian threat is the dominant, sometimes even singular, security issue that does not leave room for other problems,” he says.
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